Exhausted!

Dave and I are both exhausted.  In fact, tonight we've just sat in our chairs - no tv, no noise, nothing!  Bryan, Erin, and Aidan left here at 5:20 AM to go to the airport.  They're back in Iowa after about a week here in the warmth!  They had a great time at Disney.  Aidan loved the rides they took him on...of course, he's not big enough for many of the rides, but Dumbo was his favorite.  Bryan said he loved the "characters" too.  I miss his cute little face!

Speaking of cute faces...here are all 4 of our grandchildren and their cute faces!

We put up most of our Christmas decorations today.  Tomorrow we'll have to finish and get some pix tomorrow night!

More later...

Quiet

It's sure quiet in our home tonight :(.  Jami and her family took off around 2:15 or so and went back to Ft Lauderdale.  It's very quiet in here tonight!

We had a good day.  We ate breakfast and then we all went to the clubhouse to sort out the Christmas cards and deliver them.  We have a big box in the clubhouse for people to put their Christmas cards for other residents in.  Dave volunteered us to do the sorting and delivering of all of those cards.  Let me tell you, there were tons of cards!  The box was about 4' tall and about 1' square and it was full.  It took us about an hour to sort the cards and that's with 7 of us doing it.  The kids were great helpers!  After we had them sorted, we borrowed both Betty's and Laurie's golf carts and went door to door delivering the cards.  Some people have 30-40 cards and some only had 1.  We had a good time.  One of the ladies gave Kelly a Santa hat since we were acting like Santa's elves!

After all of that, we had lunch and used up our leftovers.  Then we were able to get 3 games of Sequence in before the kids had to help pack up their stuff for the ride home.  We'll miss them, definitely!

More later...

Merry Christmas to us!!

We bought ourselves a Christmas present today.  We are now the proud owner of a Nikon D5200 DSLR camera!!

Isn't it cool?  I'm going to sell our Sony and our Canon, so if you know someone who needs a camera, let me know.

Obviously with a new camera, I had to take some new pictures!  This camera has some special effects that Danny thought were cartoonish, so we had to experiment with the effects!

 This is Danny without any special effect...

and this is him with special effects!

 Here's Megan's special effect...

and Kelly's.

Danny taught me how to finger-knit.  I'd never done that before, but I know how now!!

More later...

Beautiful Day

Dave took Jami to work again today, but not until they attended an awards ceremony for Megan...she was on the honor roll at her school!

Megan's in the back left - way to go, Megan!

Now for more pictures from Butterfly World.  Lots of butterflies, exotic birds, and beautiful plants!

 Enlarge this one and look at this butterfly's eyes!  Spooky!

 A little hummer!

 Another passion flower!

This little girl had the most beautiful song!  She sat there and sang while I talked to her!

 Cute juvenile!  Check out some of his white baby feathers!

Just another beautiful flutterby!

Today we took Bryan & Erin to Bru's room.  They fly out tomorrow!

More later...

Teeny Tiny Gecko

I have to share the story about this picture. This a picture of 9 (8 unhatched) gecko eggs that DH and DD found when they were cleaning out a window air conditioner in December. She put them in a candle lid and we were going to watch them to see if they hatched. We also saw presumably mommy and maybe even daddy gecko! We could hardly wait for the girls to get home from school so that we could show them our find. Shortly after the girls arrived home, I went out to check the eggs and sure enough, this little guy had hatched! He's so little and cute! I called the girls to come look and then we had a few moments of holding gecko eggs to see if they would hatch in their hands. DD had said she had one hatch in her hands when she was younger and thought that was so fun, she wanted her daughters to experience it. But, since the girls are only 7 and 5, the experience required a little more patience than they had at that moment, so the eggs were left to hatch on their own. Unfortunately, we came back to Iowa shortly thereafter and we never did hear how many gecko babies they had!

DH and I got our living room put back together last night. The new color is really pretty - so rich looking, kind of like a big milk chocolate candy bar! The office is going to be beautiful, too. When our painter first brushed on some of the Indian Paintbrush, I wondered if it was going to be too pink. Now that it has dried, it is cool! It's going to take a second coat and I'm going to have to buy new curtains, but we love it! This room has a bamboo grass on the walls, so it has lots of texture. It's going to be very striking with this dark color on the walls.

Well, I've gotta run - I'm going to a "Plus Club" event at 11:30 and it's 11:10 already. FYI, this is a group of people who are over 55 from our church. Usually they have a program after lunch, but today it's just lunch and chit-chat. Anyone who knows me knows that I can hold my own in the chit-chat department! It'll be fun. Bye for now...

Backsides!

Isn't this a cute picture? This is our 1-year-old grandson and their Bull Terrier waiting for some attention! I just couldn't resist taking it!

Again, I've got a busy day planned today. I'm heading over to see my 102-year-old aunt today plus I have another funeral to attend. The father of one of my best high school friends passed away - he was 90 so he had lived a great long life! I stayed at her house quite a few times when I was in junior high and high school. She's very special to me, as were her parents.

The painting is coming along nicely. DH really liked the living room! It's dark, but very inviting!! Our painter should have the living room completed today - I'm hoping he'll have it done before I get home this afternoon. Then he's going to start on the office and it's going to be one of those colors that I would consider an "out of my comfort zone" color! It's called Indian Paintbrush and it's a mix of red and burnt orange. Red and orange are high energy colors, so maybe the new paint will make me more productive! I'm hoping for that. My desk is usually a mess and I tend to want to be on the computer "playing" instead of working.

I haven't heard anything from my friends who are wintering in S Florida. I hope they're having a great time and soaking up some sun. I also hope, however, that they'll leave some of the sunshine for when we get there in February! Gotta run for now...

Beautiful day!

What a beautiful day here! The sun is shining and the thermometer says 26 degrees! Wahoo!



Isn't this one of the cutest pictures you've ever seen. These are our grandchildren who live in Florida. I think my grandson is about ready to escape, what do you think? He looks to me like his personal space is being violated and he wants out...NOW!! He was awfully good though; he sat there for about 10 more poses...with the same look on his little face! I just love this picture! We took this picture about the 12th of December in their front yard - I have others I'll be sharing soon!